This book counts for the following Reading Challenges:

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

Things are really not going well for Samantha: after almost 10 years of quasi estrangement with her husband, she is faced with a major credit card debt, the impossibility to find a job aside dog walker, plus health issues to top it all. Talking with her good friend Tracey, she reminisces the close-to-paradise time they both spent in France in Summer 1989, and especially their encounter with two young Frenchmen…Jean-Luc had sent her 7 love letters, but bearing the stigma of her own dad abandoning her and her mother, she had been afraid to get too close, and had never answered. Twenty years later, maybe time had finally come to try to find him, to apologize and maybe try to reconnect? I loved the memoir Seven Letters From Paris!Yes, I really loved the way Sam hoped against all hope when life seemed at the toughest, and how she dared open her wounded heart again.

This is the story of how I rebooted my life and restarted my heart.p.xi

Her memoiris beautifully written, with the seven letters Jean-Luc sent her interspersed throughout the book.

There is a very nice suspenseand alternation between her memories of that idyllic Summer of twenty years before, and the tension of the present day: all her problems, plus the fear of the unknown. Indeed, when you have not connected with someone in twenty years, anything can happen when you finally meet again. Is Samantha still a dreamer, a teenager, or is something really possible for them again?
Plus, even if things seem to be possible for them, how about diving fully into a different culture, a different language, different food and customs, not even mentioning the nightmarish paperwork attached to the omnipresent French bureaucracy!

There were also of course awesome passages on France, on its architecture (Chartres, la vallée de la Loire) and its food! Though I certainly do NOT share Sam’s distaste for wild boar, and would love indeed to be able to eat some here in the US. I fondly remember when hunters of my little village would all hunt for it together and bring some that several families would share, and how my parents cooked it!

Samantha had so much going against her and her heart, it’s really very inspiring to see how hard she fought, what friends and relatives she had around her to help, and how things eventually turned out for her.

VERDICT: Seven Letters From Paris is a lively and very inspiring memoir witnessing to the fact that sometimes, life has better things in store for you than the best of fiction could make you dream of. French food and culture will also help! Perfect for all lovers of France and readers who need to be reminded that the sun always shines behind the clouds, how dark they may be.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

Twenty years, seven letters, and one long-lost love of a lifetime.

At age 40, Samantha Vérant’s life is falling apart-she’s jobless, in debt, and feeling stuck… until she stumbles upon seven old love letters from Jean-Luc, the sexy Frenchman she’d met in Paris when she was 19. With a quick Google search, she finds him, and both are quick to realize that the passion they felt 20 years prior hasn’t faded with time and distance.

Samantha knows that jetting off to France to reconnect with a man that she only knew for one sun-drenched, passion-filled day is crazy-but it’s the kind of crazy she’s been waiting for her whole life. [provided by the publisher]

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WATCH THIS GREAT BOOK TRAILER

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Samantha Vérant is a travel addict,
a self-professed oenophile,
and a determined, if occasionally unconventional, French chef.
Over the years, she’s visited many different countries,
lived in many places, and worked many jobs
— always on the search for the one thing that truly excited her.
Then, one day, she found everything she’s been looking for:
a passion for the written word and true love.
Writing not only enabled her to open her heart, it led her to southwestern France,
where she’s now married to a sexy French rocket scientist she met in 1989, but ignored for 20 years.

This story sounds amazing. It’s often difficult to find the courage to follow your heart, especially after so much time has lapsed and when it takes you so far away. I’d like to read this one. Thanks for sharing it and for visiting my blog.

What you write gives me a great idea of how this book is structured and why Samantha’s story is so appealing–a memoir that would make an equally good novel. I think the cover is beautiful. Sometimes the chance of things “working out” seems as fragile as a hummingbird’s wing! Glad they did for her.

Great review! Sounds like a wonderful read (and will probably leave me wishing to go back to Paris/France ASAP!) 🙂

Thanks also for the wonderful giveaway. Am scratching my head and thinking of a good memoir I read with events taking place in Paris…The only one I could think of is Denyse Beaulieu’s The Perfume Lover; I believe she spent a bit of time in Paris learning about how perfume was made, but my memory is a bit hazy with that book (I did learn a lot about perfume from it though).

I’m afraid I really didn’t like this book. I found it hard to review given that it was a memoir (so only reviewed it in Goodreads etc, not on my blog) but I really REALLY disliked the ‘character’ of Samantha. (And felt guilty about that!)